Democratic Northwest. [volume] (Napoleon, Ohio) 1869-1894, 1887-05-26
THE NORTHWEST
WASHINGTON LETTER.
From our regular correspondent
WASHINGTON May 10th, 1887.

The country youth or maiden who
reads of the happy lot of the Govern
ment clerk here, with his salary of from
81 200 to 81, 800 per year, with his abund-
ant leisure, and with the great advan-
tages, social, literary and spectacular,
which life at the Capital affords, is fill
ed with longing. If the country youth
and maiden are not angels, they may
even be filled with envy. The enchant-
ment which distance lends to alleged
happy lots is often provocative of envy.
Perhaps the only happy lot is the little
one of six by three feet upon which
daisies cluster, but in which there is
enchantment only for those who have
seen iridescent bubbles of life burst at
ofa Government position. But this is
a depression from the straight and mar
row path of a Washington correspond
ent.
Your correspondent wishes to explain
that he was not discharged, he resigned
and retired into the busines of Journal
ism, and I look back on my experience
as Government clerk without envy OF
longing. But to the average ex-clerk
the retrospect is much less enviable
now, than it was then in 1873. Per-
haps the greatest ill and terror ofyouth
is the school examination. Oh! dost
thou remember? Think of life of pro-
tracted school examinations! Such is to
be the future life of the Government
clerk! He may no longer drive his pen
in peace, or furtively read his news
paper. President Cleveland has de-
creed that he shall stand an examina-
tion for promotion, whether he wants
promotion or not, and that if he fails to
reach an average of IS per cent, he
must step down and out. Saints, sim
ners and the Beecher family! but this
is hard on the gilded and kaIsomined
youth and maiden whom Grant, Hayes,
Garfield, Arthur, Blaine, Malone,
Conkling and all those illustrious
spoilers pensioned upon the Treasury
in the riotous days of reconstruction
and carpet bags.
The very idea of a competitive eX-
animation is quite paralyzing, for they
know little spelling, and less arithme-
tic: Geography, mahogany, physics
and Mysteries are all the same to them.
There has been an increased demand
for school books in Washington during
the past week, and the Capital of the
United States is likely to be the para
disc of pedagOgues. Already they have
advertised to prepare applicants for
civil service examination. But the
fact remains that an education cannot
be improvised, and the midd!e-aged
Republican clerks who have impaired
their minds as we'll as their hearts in
straining to keep alive the memories
and the policy of the war, have no vi
tality left for the study of text books.
The past week added another to the
many pageants which Washington has
witnessed. The Statue of Garfield was
unveiled with much parade and orato-
ry. Ex-Speaker Kiefer made prolix
and turgid address. The President had
a hard pole to enact as representative
of the Nation in accepting the monu-
ment, which he did in little speech
which was not very bad, considering
the necessary embarrassment which q
we'll informed honest man must feel
when called upon to speak well of a
SMALL politician, narrow partisan,
and q President who was the weak pup
pet of Blaine. Is the President well
Informed? Has he forgotten the part
that Garfield took in defrauding the
country of its chosen President in 1876.
Has he forgotten that it was this same
man who from the stump told Republic
can audiences, in an era of peace, twen-
ty years after the war, to look along
the barrels of their rifles and vote as
they shot? Say nothing but good of
the dead? Classic bosh! Then erect
statues in honor of Nero and Judas
Iscariot, for they too are dead. am
sick of these everlasting statues to
spurious mushroom fame. Tilden
whom Garfield defrauded of the Presi-
dency, and thus made his own election
possible, can afford to wait hundred
years for his statue, but when it is built,
no one looking even at Washington's
monument should be able to say ex-
ceIsior.
''Greet captains with their guns and drums
Disturb our judgment for the hour;
But at last silence comes;
These all are gone, and, standing like a tower
Our children shall behold his fame"